What a fascinating idea, that 3D printing could become a regular part of low-volume manufacturing. Will there be any quality implications? A prototype is one thing, years of service is a product is another.

Rob, low-volume manufacturing is not a new idea in 3D printing, especially for aerospace, as we've covered before:http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1392&doc_id=262205http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1392&doc_id=258652http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1392&doc_id=251526

Ann, you are correct. I was talking to a small shop just the other day. They have used 3D printing for some types of low rate custom products. They also use a corn stalk based plastic in their 3D printer. I think it was PLA. They gave me a small Tardis model made with PLA. It is very detailed.

On the other hand, there is a point at which injection molding becomes more effective. Even if you use aluminum for the mold, if you have a CNC machine it is generally easy to do.

What is interesting is that there are so many good new manufacturing technologies available. The distinguishing feature of many of them is the ability to interface directly with CAD systems. Using the right manufacturing technology for the particular part will help streamline manufacturing and make it more efficient. 3D can be a big part of that.

What you are doing sounds incredibly cool and useful, but the thought of 3D printing an airbus gives me the willies. I know machines can be remarkable and people can make mistakes, but I still would feel better knowing the plane was assembled by craftsmen rather than printed by a machine.

I was at the midatlantic design conference today. I saw the Baxter robot there. It occured to me that a 3D printer is the perfect accessory for that robot. It was designed to be very flexible and easy to teach a process. However you still need a gripper and possibly fixtures for holding parts for assembly, packaging etc. So they could provide 3D cad files of the end of arm interface or stock gripping mechanism. Then you'd add the necessary shapes required to handle your part to the model, print it, and this afternoon you could be doing a whole new task. What a great combination!

I can see a future niche for using 3D printers for high mix/low volume manufacturing. For certain products, it would be cost-effective for the 'limited edition' version of a product to be printed on a 3D printer.

I also see a niche for 'personalized' products built with 3D printers. A company might take your personal measurements and preferences and built a unique, one-of-a-kind product using this technology.

Yes Rob you are correct , it is an excellent idea that 3D printing is not just used for prototyping it is also now used for manufacturing . Creating 3D prited airbus was an excellent idea and it really fascinated me . Now 3D printing is comming towards consumer friendly price points . 3D printing which was initially used for prototyping is now being used in number of industries like aerospace . defense , automative and healthcare etc.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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